


Things Associated With Spring

by tuuli



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 10:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6749518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuuli/pseuds/tuuli





	Things Associated With Spring

As soon as he had been able to, Shindou Hikaru had moved into an apartment of his own. It was clearly due to Way’s influence. It had taken only one visit to Waya’s one-room apartment, and Shindou had decided, to the horror of his mother, that he too wanted to move out. He hadn’t wasted any time on doing that either, but practically took the first place he found that had a good location and an affordable rent. 

It was, Touya pondered one evening when he had come to Shindou’s place for a game or two (or three, or how many they pleased), most likely also because of Waya’s example how Shindou, while proudly talking about living on his own, frequently went to eat at his parents, and also carried all his laundry there for his mother to wash. Basically he just slept at his new home. Slept and played go, of course. 

Touya wasn’t going to say anything about that, though. There was something else on his mind. Had been a long while, a month or two. He had been hoping for something to happen, for he really didn’t want to be the one to raise the matter, but… he just couldn’t take it anymore.

Once they were done with their first game and the discussion (which Touya honestly had tried to keep down – he didn’t want Shindou to get in trouble with his neighbors, though the boy himself definitely didn’t seem to worry about such things) he pointedly closed the lid of his stone bowl and gave Shindou a look.

The other boy blinked. “Only one game?”

Touya shook his head. “No. But, Shindou…” he let his gaze slowly wander across the room, “When did you last clean up this place?”

Shindou grimaced. “Clean? Hah, just, I don’t know, a couple of days ago!”

“Really?” Touya’s eyebrows rose to amazing heights as he turned back to his companion. 

“Really! What about it? Let’s play more!” Shindou’s hand was already in his stone bowl, fingers touching the stones lightly.

“What exactly did you do?” Once again Touya gave the room an appraising look. The only clear area was where they were sitting by the goban. The rest of the floor (as well as the table and chairs) was covered with clothes, go books, pieces of paper, lone shoes, bags, and, of course, quite a crowd of dustbunnies. “I can’t really notice that anything would have happened here since… well, I don’t know. Ever. I mean, those pizza boxes,” he pointed with his finger, “haven’t they been there since your housewarming party?” And that had been over four months ago. If anything, the pile had grown bigger – perhaps Shindou didn’t always eat with his parents.

“I’ll take them out when I remember,” Shindou said, a frown on his face. “Do you want to play or not?”

“Of course I do,” Touya said with a sigh and opened his stone bowl. “But, Shindou, you must clean up here. This place is a mess.”

“Sure, sure, I will,” Shindou said happily. He took a stone, having black, and played it.

“Actually,” Touya said, “wouldn’t tomorrow be good? I could come to help you.” The only way to make sure Shindou would actually do something more than just take the pizza boxes away, he figured.

“What?” Shindou stared at him, looking fairly shocked. “Tomorrow?”

“Saturday is a good day for cleaning. And you said you’re free, didn’t you? Anyway,” Touya glanced toward the window, at the last rays of the setting sun that were still pouring in through it, “spring is here. Just the right time to…”

A strange sound, like a smothered wail came out of Shindou’s mouth and he fell to the floor. “Shindou?” Touya blinked at him, confused. “Are you okay? What is it?”

“Spring cleaning!” the boy wailed. “Are you my mom in disguise or something? Why do some people get that urge to clean of all things when spring comes!? That makes no sense at all!” He sat up and glared at Touya. “Spring is the time to get out in the sunlight and be happy and start eating ginger-wasabi ice cream and play soccer and have dates and not to be in dusty places cleaning!”

Dates? Touya blinked and gave the other boy a searching look that went unnoticed. “Ginger-wasabi…?” he said instead, pondering that taste combination. “Oh, never mind. I’ll come tomorrow morning. And don’t look like that, Shindou! Cleaning every now and then won’t kill you. You’ll be happy when it’s done.”

“The worst thing about cleaning,” Shindou muttered darkly, “is that it’s never done. You have to do it over and over and over again!” He turned his dark glare back to Touya. “This was one of the reasons I wanted to move out!”

“You mean you actually helped you mother cleaning at your old home?” Touya muttered under his breath as he finally played his first move.

Shindou grasped a stone but instead of playing it threw it at him. Touya dodged it, but the following handful of stones hit him in the face.

“Shindou!” Touya sprung to his feet, go stones falling down all around him. Shindou sprawled on the floor laughing, before grasping another handful of stones.

Damn the neighbors. If Shindou would get a warning, he deserved it.  


.

The next morning Touya rang Shindou’s doorbell, two big plastic bags in his hands. He waited, rang it again, and waited some more. On the third try he practically leaned against the button.

“Yes, yes, yes!” He could hear Shindou’s voice through the door. “I’m coming!” The door flung open to reveal Shindou in his pajamas, with tousled hair and eyes that were too sleepy to manage the glare they attempted. “What?”

“Morning, Shindou,” Touya said and stepped in. “Were you still sleeping?”

“Touya?” Shindou blinked when it finally registered to him who his visitor was. “Yeah, of course I was sleeping! People usually sleep in the middle of the night!”

“It’s 10 a.m.” Touya stated calmly while taking of his shoes. 

“So?” Shindou mumbled, running his hand through his hair. “Ten a.m. is in the middle of the night on Saturday!”

Touya decided to let that pass. “So you haven’t had breakfast yet? I can wait for you to do that… and change.” He gave a long look at Shindou’s bright yellow pajamas that had black dots on them, and decided to keep quiet about that, too. Better not to irritate Shindou too much before he had had his morning coffee.

The boy shot him yet one glare, this one less drowsy than the earlier, and headed to his bedroom, pulling his pajama shirt over his head, mumbling something under his breath. Touya stared a moment after him and looked then away, telling himself to get started with it and empty his bags – only to realize there wasn’t anywhere where to empty them.

“What’s all that stuff?” Shindou asked, giving him a start. If anything, Touya thought to himself, at least he’s quick to change.

“Cleaning materials. I checked yesterday, and you had nothing. Some detergents, sponges, microfiber cloths, rubber gloves, a squeegee, a foldable mop and a bucket, and also,” he gave Shindou a sharp look, “some dishwashing liquid, in the case you some day eat here.”

“Wow.” Shindou took the squeegee and gave it a wary look, as if he suspected it to be some kind of a dangerous torture tool. “What are you going to do with this?”

“We, Shindou. We,” Touya muttered. “It’s for washing windows.”

“Windows? You have to be kidding! There’s no need to…”

“Sure there is. They’re dirty. You clearly see it when sun’s setting and shines straight at them.”

“You… sound just like my mom,” Shindou muttered accusingly.

“Talking about your mother, has she ever been here?”

“Sure… a while ago.”

“And she didn’t tell you to clean up?” Shindou was quiet, and Touya gave a sigh. “Oh, well, have your breakfast. I think I’ll take these to the bathroom. You can pay me later.”

Shindou had started to head toward the kitchen, but spun around at the word ‘pay’. “What?!” Touya didn’t pause to listen, though.

An hour later Touya finally had everything organized and they were getting started. Shindou sat on the living room floor, still grumbling to himself, going through the papers Touya was piling for him.  
He threw a few more kifu on the pile. “These were under the bed. As was this.” He showed Shindou a library book with life-and-death problems and winced inwardly at the look that quickly passed on the boy’s face.

“Oh, that,” was all that Shindou said. “Just put it… somewhere.”

“When is it due?” Touya just had to ask, though he suspected he might regret it. Shindou only shrugged. “Okay,” Touya stated resignedly and placed the book on the table. “All the clothes and other… stuff I found under the bed I put on it.”

“Fine,” Shindou mumbled and put the papers he’d had in his hands in the rubbish pile – which was so far the only pile there was. He grasped a kifu Touya had brought him, glanced at it, and his eyes widened. “This…!”

“Yes?” Touya paused at the doorway to look at him, and smiled a little seeing the way the boy was staring at the papers he’d brought him. “Are they important?”

Shindou shrugged again, though a little forcibly. “Not so… I remember the games so I could have written them down again.”

Touya’s interest was getting aroused. “Are they your old games? I took a quick look at them, it seemed like one of the players is quite strong and the other a beginner.” He paused, waiting for Shindou to say something. As the boy remained quiet he went on,” did you play them with your teacher?”

Once again Shindou shrugged. “Just with one… random old guy.”

“Random old guy.” Touya’s tone was quite dry.

“Yeah. Ancient, you could say.” Shindou placed the kifus on the floor in a pile of their own, and took the next papers under scrutiny. “I’ll be soon done with these, then I’ll check what else you rescued from the depths.”

“The depths?”

“Under my bed.” The next papers were quite quickly tossed aside. Touya, having his back turned to the other boy, gave himself permission to roll his eyes.  


.

“Okay.” The floor had been cleared off all that did not belong on the floor, and though there were still some unsorted piles of clothes on Shindou’s bed, Touya had decided they could wait. (He had, though, a new respect for the size of Shindou’s wardrobe. Just how many stupid t-shirts did the boy actually own?) “Next, vacuuming.” A vacuum-cleaner miraculously did belong to Shindou’s possessions, thanks to his mother, Touya suspected. “You take it out.”

For once Shindou did without any protest what he had been told to. Whether or not those kifus had been of any importance, finding them had clearly improved the boy’s mood. See, cleaning every now and then isn’t such a bad idea, Touya wanted to tell him, but decided to do that only once they were all done, not to accidentally ruin this new co-operation.  
While the boy headed to get the vacuum cleaner, he shot yet one look around the floor, checking if there was anything that shouldn’t be vacuumed. An army of dustbunnies, disturbed in their rest, had started an invasion from the “depths” across the floor that wasn’t itself quite dustless. He gave them a knowing, somewhat smug smile. “You’re not getting far,” he promised, taking yet one peek under the bed. Nothing but dust… and something that glistened a little. He sunk to his knees and, holding his breath in that empire of dust, reached.

A small stud earring, with a little violet stone. Touya turned it on his palm, wondering. Why was there something like this in Shindou’s apartment? The securing part was missing. As if it had fallen off somebody’s ear?

Under Shindou’s bed. He blinked.

“Alright!” The loud voice behind his back almost made him yelp aloud, and he jumped to his feet, clutching the bewildering piece of jewelry in his hand. Shindou entered the room, dragging the vacuum cleaner behind himself. “Shall I start from here or what, boss?”

“What? Yes, that is… whatever you want.”

“What I want?” Shindou shot him a grin while bending to plug in the vacuum cleaner. “Should I tell you what I want?”

“No. Just, get started.” Touya pushed the earring into his pocket and marched out of the room past Shindou who muttered something about a killjoy. “Do good job, too,” he added without looking back.

“Yessir,” Shindou mumbled unenthusiastically as the vacuum cleaner hummed on.

Touya walked straight to the kitchen and paused only there, sure he was out of Shindou’s view. Okay. So, an earring… equaled a girl. And a girl losing her earring in Shindou’s bedroom equaled… no. Surely he would know if Shindou had… that is, if there had ever been… He couldn’t quite finish the thought. 

Or… would he? What did he know of Shindou’s private life, in the end?

And how was it his business?

The sound of the vacuum cleaner came from the bedroom, accompanied by some quiet swearing. Touya licked his lips and decided he too should be doing something and stop thinking about that earring. Maybe clean the kitchen. That wouldn’t be such a hard job, given that Shindou apparently never used anything else but the microwave. Which was a blessing, he thought with a sigh, as he looked into it. He’d clean the rest of the kitchen and leave that for Shindou.

In a couple of hours they were done: the floors vacuumed and washed, the kitchen cleaned, the microwave scrubbed, and even the toilet was washed. The pile of clothes on the bed was all that remained. And the dirty windows. Touya was watching them appraisingly when Shindou shuffled to him.

“Lunch break?” Shindou said hopefully, giving him a look that was almost fearful.

“I guess,” Touya said, and the boy gave a breath of relief. “What would you like to eat?”

“There’s a nice ramen place not far away…” The hopeful tone was still there and Touya decided to give in to it. They had got much more done that he had imagined.

“Fine.” He glanced at the garbage bags that waited to be taken out. “We could take something out as we go. How is the schedule?”

“Schedule?” Shindou blinked. “Oh, you mean the garbage… I think on Saturday it’s… cardboards? No, wait, burnable! …one or the other…”

Touya sighed. “We’d better check that before we take anything out.”

It turned out to be unburnable. Touya said nothing, but decided he would see to it that Shindou wrote the times down when they returned – and wouldn’t lose the paper this time. Maybe some fridge magnets would do the trick.

Not far away in Shindou-language turned out to mean a fifteen-minute walk, but as the weather was nice and they had spent the whole day inside, Touya didn’t really mind. The only problem was that now there was nothing to do to keep his thoughts from the earring that was practically burning in his pocket. He attempted to come up with some conversation, but somehow he couldn’t think of a single suitable topic. Shindou too was uncharacteristically quiet, strolling onward without a word.

There was probably a completely sensible reason for the earring to have been where it was. Maybe it belonged to that childhood friend of Shindou’s… Fuji…saki, was it? Akari? He tried to remember if the girl had piercings, but failed.

On the other hand, what of it, if it did belong to some… girlfriend? Surely Shindou could date anyone he wanted.

Date. He remembered with a wince Shindou mentioning that word, in association with spring. He had thought it funny, an un-Shindou-like thing to say… but maybe he was seeing someone.

In which case, why didn’t the boy just tell him? They were friends, weren’t they, and friends told such things to each other. Or so he thought, at least.

With a few false starts he gathered his courage and opened his mouth, not quite understanding why this question made him so nervous. “Say, do you…”

“There it is!” Shindou exclaimed right then, pointing. “Ah, can’t wait! What will you have?”

“I, uh… I hadn’t really thought about it yet.”

“You haven’t? Hah, I’ve been thinking nothing but! I’ll probably have tonkotsu, but I’m not yet quite sure exactly what I’ll pick… it’s a great place, everything’s so good!”

There was a wide grin on Shindou’s face as they entered the place, and from the way they were greeted Touya figured he probably was a regular there. Soon they had their steaming bowls in front of them, and Shindou started promptly slurping down his portion, focusing on it with the same concentration he had dedicated on making his selection. The food was quite excellent, though, Touya had to admit that. The restaurant was popular too – it was a good thing they had fit in, between a group of four teenage girls and an old couple.

They were nearly finished with their quiet lunch when Touya decided he was being ridiculous. What was he going to do with the freaking earring, anyway? Just throw it away? Drop it somewhere on Shindou’s floor for the boy to find? 

“Oh,” he said, attempting to sound both casual and as if he just come to think of it, “I almost forgot, I found this. Under your bed,” he just had to add under his breath, as he placed the earring on the table. 

Shindou paused from his eating, a bit of noodle hanging from his mouth before he sucked it in. “Huh? What was it doing there?”

Touya gave an awkward shrug. “I wouldn’t know.” He watched as Shindou took the earring, gave it a look, and put it in his pocket before turning his attention back to his food. He waited a moment. When it became obvious that Shindou wasn’t going to say anything about it, he blurted out, unable to keep his annoyance from his voice, “So whose is it?”

Shindou looked up at him, face unreadable. “Mine, of course.”

Touya blinked. “Yours?” Shindou nodded, and he gave a snort. “Are you kidding me? Why would you have… you don’t even have piercings!”

“I was… thinking about having my ears pierced,” Shindou mumbled, a weird look still on his face.

Touya was shaking his head. “Even if you did… why that kind of earrings? They’re not… not… you at all! The color and… everything. It’s not you.”

“I liked them,” Shindou said stiffly, and took a long slurp from his bowl, not volunteering any more information. 

Touya took a deep breath, lowering his chopsticks on the board. He wasn’t hungry anymore, anyway. “Look, Shindou,” he said, attempting to keep his voice down, “if you’ve got a girlfriend, you can…”

Shindou gave a strange, gurgling sound, and spent a long while coughing. “What?!” he exclaimed when he finally recovered. The glare he shot at Touya across the table rivaled his most intense game looks. “Are you nuts? A girlfriend?!”

“Don’t shout,” Touya muttered, seeing from the corner of his eye how the girls at the next table paused from talking and looked at them. “That’s much more likely to be true than you buying something like that for yourself. Do you think I’m stupid or something?”

“Yes,” Shindou muttered darkly. “An idiot, that’s what you are.” Touya stiffened, about to object, but Shindou went on, “I don’t have any freaking girlfriend and I don’t even want one! I just bought those cause I… cause I wanted to! Is that a crime?”

Touya sat silently on his chair, attempting to ignore the girls who seemed to be rather amused about something. Shindou met his gaze unwaveringly, but there was something on the boy’s face, a slight blush, a strange stiffness, that made him sure he was lying. He released his breath. 

“No… but I just don’t understand why you have to lie to me. Because I know you’re lying. I mean, I thought we’re… friends, and…” Something flashed on Shindou’s face and he fell quiet, swallowing. He couldn’t quite understand why he suddenly felt so miserable. He attempted to call his anger back, but somehow it had evaporated, leaving him empty like a deflated balloon. “Well.” He blinked, eyes stingy. “Never mind. It’s none of my business, I get that. I guess I’ll be going then.”

“Going?” Shindou’s eyes widened a tiniest bit. “Weren’t we supposed… I mean… the windows?”

“We’ve done a lot today,” Touya said standing up. He was painfully aware of the silence in the next table and carefully avoided looking at the girls. “See you.”

“I…” he heard Shindou’s voice from behind his back as he turned to go, very quietly, “I bought them for you.”

He paused, wondering if he had heard right. Glancing back he saw Shindou sitting very still, eyes fixed on his ramen bowl, and definitive blush on his cheeks.

“You…” He shook his head as if to clear it. “You know, that makes even less sense than you buying them for yourself.”

“Maybe.” Shindou shrugged awkwardly. “But I did. Cause I… thought they’d look good on you. But I never gave them cause that’d… be kinda… weird…” He was faded away, so quiet Touya barely heard it.

“Oh.” Touya just stood there, feeling like an idiot but not knowing what to do. The old couple was eating their portions as if nothing was going on. The girls, he suspected, probably stared at them as if at some soap opera on TV, but he didn’t turn to check. “Well. That is…” he sat down again, not knowing what else to do. “I don’t have piercings either,” he finally said, and felt his cheeks turn hot. Of all stupid things to say.

“Yeah.” Shindou still wasn’t looking at him. “I don’t know, maybe I’ll just throw them away. Though you could have them if you want. If I… find the other one that is…”

Touya couldn’t help it, he just had to roll his eyes at that. “You’re impossible! You really should learn to be more orderly.”

“Yes mom,” Shindou said softly. Finally he looked up, straight to Touya’s eyes “So, do you want them?”

“Ah, I…” He attempted to look away but couldn’t. “I guess… if they are a gift…” He attempted to imagine himself wearing something like that. What would his parents say, too? …did Shindou really think it’d look good? Suddenly the heat was back on his cheeks.

The old couple rose and left, and he moved his chair a little to make way for them, breaking the eye contact. For a long moment neither of them said anything.

Shindou finally broke the silence. “I said I don’t have a girlfriend, and that’s true. Never had one. Never wanted one.”

Touya didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing, just stared at the table, wishing he could restart his brain.

“Should we be going?” Shindou finally went on as the silence prolonged. “We could still wash the windows today, that’s fine for me.”

“Yes, I… I guess. If you want to.” Touya took a breath, relieved as he expected the situation to normalize, and made the mistake of looking up at him. Shindou was leaning against the table, watching him with a wry smile that made his brain freeze again.

The smile widened into a grin. “A window-washing date, how about? And while we’re at it, I could see if I can find this one’s pair,” Shindou said, holding the earring up in his fingers. Touya just blinked. He heard a whispered “Yes!” from somewhere, and then some shushing noises, but he didn’t quite understand what they were about.

“I… guess…”

“Fine! Let’s go then!” Shindou stood up in one swift movement, pushing his chair back. “Thank you!” he called at the staff. “Delicious as always!”

Touya stood up too, more slowly. “Date…?” he said, finally catching on Shindou’s choice of words.

“Sure.” The boy was already standing by his side, giving him now a very serious look. “Unless you’ve got something against that.”

He blinked, once more. “I… no?”

“Good!” Shindou grinned. “First the windows, and then we can go out and have some ice cream, right?”

“Ginger wasabi…” he said hesitantly, still not quite understanding what was going on.

“For that we need to visit my grandma!” Shindou said happily. “But we can do that.” He pushed Touya gently on the back, steering him toward the door. “Let’s get going!”

Touya couldn’t help noticing the strangely triumphant grin and nod the boy shot at the girls’ table, but he didn’t turn to look. Instead he followed Shindou out, beginning to feel oddly lightheaded, a silly smile tugging at his lips.


End file.
